Raise the Hammer

A Vision for Transit in the 21st Century

The City of Hamilton has committed to doubling transit ridership (to 100 rides per person per year) by 2020. But how do we get there from here?

Instead of waiting for the city to figure this out, a grassroots organization of citizens who support public transit is holding a series of public meetings and an online survey to develop a community-based vision for public transit in the 21st century.

Our first meeting is:

Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Location: Rm. I-109, Mohawk College Fennel Campus

Address: 135 Fennell Ave. W. (at West 5th St.), Hamilton ON, L9C 1E9

We plan to make presentations and hold meetings at many community locations in the next few months. At the same time, we will have an online survey so Hamiltonians can share their vision of what transit could be.

These are exciting times for transit, thanks to the discussion of light rail and the creation of some new routes and discount passes. Yet we know that there is still overcrowding on some routes of the HSR, and battles continue over what should be appropriate levels of fares and public support of transit.

The HSR is currently undertaking a full operational review of its routes and schedules, so this is an especially good time to present a broad-based community vision for where we want transit to go and how we can make it happen.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan writes a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. He also maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

but then I thought it would be a good idea to put it in the blog as well, because the events listing doesn't currently get a lot of traffic (and we have plans to make it more user friendly).

As it happens, this was only the first of what we hope to be several visioning sessions at different locations across the city over the next few months.

We also plan to make presentations to neighbourhood associations, community organizations and business groups letting them know about the initiative and the online survey (which will be available soon - we're just doing some usability testing on it right now).

Please rest assured that we will provide a lot more advance notice for these upcoming events.